The Imam & Pastor
2010 Mattie J.T. Stepanek Peacemaker Award Honorees

Pastor James Wuye and Imam Muhammad Ashafa co-founded the Interfaith Mediation Centre - IMC Nigeria. Once leaders of conflicting Christian and Muslim groups, the Pastor and Imam have reconciled their differences and now work together to promote peace through the early detection and prevention of violence motivated by religious misunderstanding. Both men are 2006 Ashoka Fellows and have received numerous awards over the years including: The Tanenbaum Centre for Inter-Religious Understanding-New York Peace Activist Award USA 2000, The Kaduna Chambers Peace Humanitarian Award 2002, Peace Makers and Preventing Inter-religious Conflict Award by the Nigeria People's Forum-USA in 2005, and titled Ambassadors of Peace by the Inter-religious and International Federation for World Peace in 2005. Their film, "The Imam and the Pastor", produced by FLT Film-UK, is an inspirational presentation on forgiveness, documenting the famous Kaduna Peace Declaration of Religious Leaders 2002 and the 2003 Shendam Peace Affirmation. The film's world premiere was held at the United Nations on November 28, 2005 and was met with an enthusiastic reception from diplomats and UN officials.

Imam Ashafa and Pastor James opened the 2010 Three Dot Dash Just Peace Summit with a keynote conversation moderated by CNN's Soledad O'Brien.